Tell Him Everything
by acaelousqueadcentrum
Summary: One morning with Hugo. Part of "Heart to Heart." Post-"This Is The Time to Remember," pre-"Make 'Em Laugh."


Gail wakes to the sound of soft cries coming from the bassinet on Holly's side of the bed.

She looks over at the clock—it's early, much earlier than she likes to wake up. But Holly is still asleep, and there was no way Gail is going to wake her. She knows that this isn't the first time Hugo has been awake since she kissed his sweet forehead and put him down last night. But Holly has been the one getting up with him. Holly has been the one heating up his nighttime bottles and feeding him, slowly rocking him back to sleep. Holly has been doing almost everything.

And Gail understands. She knows what Holly's doing. And in some ways, it's necessary. It's necessary for Holly to be the one who cleans, who cooks, who holds Hugo up to her shoulder and sways with him around the living room when he's being particularly fussy. Because right now, Gail really can't. She's still recovering from the trauma of giving birth to their son, to the trauma of everything that came after. She's still exhausted, still sore, still weak, still unable to do much more than move from couch to chair to bed. And even then she usually has Holly at her side, just in case.

But in other ways, it's Holly's way of dealing. Holly's way of coping. She knows that Holly has herself convinced that if she does everything just right, if she takes care of her wife and son's every need, if she can just hold everything together, then nothing will ever fall apart again. She'll never almost lose Gail and their son again.

But Gail knows that that's not true. Gail knows that life will happen, whether they want it to or not. Just like Hugo's birth, what was supposed to be a beautiful, perfect memory. Her memories of that day, the few that she has, are colored by pain and fear. And she knows Holly's are worse.

She knows it from her own life, has seen it too many times in her job. Things happen, and all anyone can do is cling to the ones they love, and help each other through it.

All she and Holly can do is cling to each other and their beautiful baby boy, and try to remember how to trust in the unknowns that the future holds.

So today, waking up to the early morning sun on their son's one-month birthday, Gail's decided that enough's enough. She can't let Holly shoulder all this by herself anymore. So even if she hurts, even if she's tired, even if she's slower than normal, she's done with sitting around and watching. Watching Holly and Hugo, watching any of the other people who keep dropping by to lend a hand.

A month after she almost died, a week and a half after she was finally able to come home to her family, Gail's ready to start living again.

First step, take Hugo out to the living room so Holly can get some more sleep.

Gail attempted to sit up without aggravating her still-healing stitches or the muscles in her lower abdomen.

Scratch that. First step. Sit up.

After a few moments she's able to half-roll and half-push herself into a sitting position. And then, afer a moment more, to stand. It was harder without Holly's help, the strong and gentle hand supporting her, but she did it.

She shuffles slowly over to Holly's side of the bed, where her little boy is fussing.

"Morning, bud," she whispers to him, sparing a glance over at the bed to make sure her wife is still asleep. Content that Holly hasn't woken up, not for her struggles on the bed nor the gentle sounds their son is making, she reaches into the bassinette to gather up Hugo and the receiving blanket he's swaddled in.

Lifting him up and settling him into her arms hurts, but it's an ache, and not a tearing or a ripping like the doctors warned her about. As long as she moves slowly, and doesn't do too much, Gail figures, she'll be fine.

In the nursery down the hall, Gail changes his wet diaper, and teases him, telling him he's a good boy for saving his messier ones for his mama.

* * *

Holly was Hugo's mama, Gail decided from the very beginning, long before they knew that Hugo was going to be Hugo. And she was going to be mom. Mommy at first, of course, but eventually just plain mom. It just made sense to her, and so that's how it was going to be.

Holly had laughed when Gail told her this, laughed and then kissed her very newly pregnant wife on the nose, right there in the exam room with the ultrasound technician watching and the first picture of their baby on the screen before them.

They'd stuck, though, the names. And from early on in her pregnancy one of Gail's favorite ways to end a day was to lay in bed and watch as Holly laid hands on her growing belly, as she leaned in close and whispered to their child. "Hello, baby," Holly would say with a smile, "it's mama." And then she'd narrate things from their day, how she saw a rainbow, or how Gail—how mommy—had caught a bad guy. Sometimes she'd tell the baby how mommy was cranky from all the kicking, or the near-constant heartburn, and ask him to go a little easier on his poor mom. Other times Holly would whisper dreams of their baby's future into the soft skin of Gail's belly, dreams of all the adventures their little family would have.

Gail pretended to think it was lame, but truthfully, she thought it was adorable. Some nights the sweetness of it even brought tears to her eyes. Some of it was the hormones, of course. Gail Peck did not cry over things. But some of it was just how loved it made her feel, watching as her wife talked to their unborn child. The child she could feel herself falling in love with more and more every night.

In those moments she'd felt like nothing was impossible. Like she could do this, be this. A wife, a mother.

* * *

It takes a while, and by the time the bottle is heated up and she's got them both settled into the big, soft armchair in the living room, Hugo's cries have gotten stronger.

"Shhhh, it's okay, Hugo," Gail says in a sing-song voice as she adjusts the pillow under her arm to help support his weight. She's left the bean-shaped pillow they'd received at their baby shower before Hugo was born on the couch, so this other one will have to do.

Originally she and Holly had planned for her to breastfeed the baby for the first few months, as long as Gail was on maternity leave at least. But Gail's condition after birth had made that unfeasible. Still, the breastfeeding pillow was useful. It helped to situate Hugo during his feeds so that too much weight and pressure weren't put on her stitches.

"There you go, that's yummy, hmmm," she whispers as Hugo starts to eat with gusto, one hand tucked up under his chin and the other grasping at her hand holding the bottle. His eyes are wide open and looking straight up at her, and the only noise in the room is the sound of him eating.

Gail stares down at her son's face.

She knows it by heart. Just like she knows Holly's. She knows every curve, every line, every perfect imperfection.

It strikes her then, as she sits and watches Hugo, that this is the first time she's really been alone with her baby. This is the first time she's really gotten to bond without anyone sitting by to lend a hand. Without Holly at her side, or their mothers, or any of their many friends who have been so good about dropping by to help out.

This is the first time, since the moment she reached out for Oliver's hand in the squad room before slowly sliding to the floor, that it's just her and her baby. The baby she carried, the baby who danced on her ribs and kicked at her lungs, and kept her up all hours of the night during those last weeks.

For so long they were one, and then their world fell apart and it hasn't been just them since.

Gail's grateful for all the help. Grateful for Holly's loving presence at every moment. But she's also grateful for this, for this moment alone with her son.

* * *

She doesn't remember everything.

And what she does remember comes back to her in images, in sensations, in sounds.

Never whole. Never complete.

She remembers knowing that something was wrong.

She remembers shouting, hands on her face.

She remembers the cold being worse than the pain.

She remembers the emptiness, the hollow feeling.

But mostly what she remembers is the nothingness. The darkness. The deafening silence.

* * *

Hugo's finished eating, and clearly sleepy but not quite asleep yet. He's fighting it off, it seems, and Gail smiles because Holly was right. The little scrunched up face he's making is all Peck, all her.

She's not ready for this moment to end, this moment between the two of them. There are things she needs to say, things that she's been carrying inside her since she woke up in that hospital bed, her exhausted wife at her side and her belly flat. Things that weigh her down at night, in the dark still moments that are too much like that endless quiet of the coma, that great stretch of absence that she remembers only obliquely, like a shadow in the corner of her eye.

"Hey," she whispers down to the boy in her arms, "hey, Hugo."

He blinks up at her, his blue eyes bright against his dark lashes.

"Hi there," she says, not quite sure how to start.

But she's a Peck, and so is he. So maybe the best way is just to say it. To get it out.

And she does have things to say to him. But as she looks down at his face, at his drooping eyes, all the apologies have been sitting heavily on her tongue, all the wishes of how things could have gone, should have gone, all the things she wishes could have been different disappear.

Because her son is in her arms, and her wife is asleep in their bed.

And none of the apologies matter.

So she tells him the only thing that does.

She loves him.

She'll always love him.


End file.
